The technology industry is mounting an offensive against states that have passed, or are considering, bills that could allow discrimination against gays and others.

Last week, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed into law a bill that set a legal framework for those who claim that government antidiscrimination rules hamper their religion freedom. The law has prompted concern among civil rights leaders and others that it allows businesses to discriminate against people who are offend business owners’ or employees’ religious beliefs. Read More »

Facebook plans to test a version of its solar-powered drone this summer, a step in its efforts to beam Internet access to billions of people without it today, executives said on Thursday.

Earlier this month, Facebook tested a smaller drone, about one-tenth the size of its planned solar-powered models. The full-size version will have the wingspan of a Boeing 737 but only weigh as much as a small car. Read More »

In a five-to-zero vote, the Federal Trade Commission ruled Wednesday that a website operated by Napster co-founder John Fanning had misled consumers. The site presented users with personal profiles of themselves labeled “Jerk” or “Not a Jerk,” purportedly posted by other users. In fact, information in the profiles was harvested from Facebook, and the “jerk” labels were added by site personnel.

In addition, the site, jerk.com, said users could pay a $30 membership fee to have negative comments beneath their profiles altered or removed, but seldom made those changes even after the fee was paid. Read More »

The Federal Trade Commission inadvertently shared with The Wall Street Journal a document outlining findings by key staffers who spent more than a year investigating Google’s business practices. Here are some highlights from the staff report:

–The FTC’s bureau of competition recommended that the commission take legal action against Google in three areas, related to the search giant’s advertising practices and its use of content from other web sites to boost its own product offerings. Competition staffers found that Google’s conduct “has resulted – and will result – in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets.” Read More »

Events called “PowerPoint karaoke,” or “battle decks” have been popping up in comedy clubs and corporate retreats, mixing the familiar but unloved style of PowerPoint talks with improvised comedy. In these events, the subject of a Page One story in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, participants must give an impromptu speech – a sermon about singer Kanye West or a business pitch for robot vending machines – to accompany slides the presenter hasn’t seen before. Read More »

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is the latest tech company to cross over into financial services.

Xiaomi began public beta testing Tuesday of an online money-market fund that lets users earn interest on money saved in Xiaomi’s wallet app, a spokeswoman said. It marks another sign of Xiaomi’s ambitions to be an Internet company rivaling Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings, rather than just a hardware maker. China e-commerce giant Alibaba launched its Yu’e Bao online fund management platform in June 2013, and it became the fourth-largest money market fund in the world at one point last year.

The annual yield for Xiaomi’s fund is currently 6.4%, according to a microblog post by Xiaomi marketing chief Tony Wei. Yu’e Bao’s yield has fallen to 4.5% as of Tuesday, although it was over 6% in its early days. It isn’t clear whether Xiaomi’s higher rate would remain should the company make the program permanent. Read More »

Ford Motor Co. is turning to longtime partner Microsoft Corp. to make over-the-air software updates standard in its next generation of cars. The auto maker said it would pair up with the tech giant to create a new cloud-based network that would allow it to beam down new programming to its cars to update everything including display screen graphics and voice-recognition software. Read More »

Mary Meeker, once dubbed the “Queen of the ’Net,” took the witness stand at a high-profile sex-discrimination trial Monday and said Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture-capital firm that employs her, has not excluded women from promotions or events.

“Kleiner Perkins is the best place to be a woman in the business,” she said directly to the jury. Read More »

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt had a lot to say Monday about the lack of racial and gender diversity in the technology industry.

In fact, Schmidt had so much to say that he often interrupted and spoke over his co-panelist, Megan Smith, the U.S.’s chief technology officer and a former Google executive. The two appeared on a panel at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Tex. Read More »